


Anger Management

by Eledhwen



Series: Banner & Murdock [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anger Management, Friendship, Gen, Matt prefers to punch than talk, Not really a Daredevil Meets the Avengers fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 06:56:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18360926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eledhwen/pseuds/Eledhwen
Summary: Matt stood in front of the building, hand wrapped tight around the handle of his cane, listening hard to the city in the hope that there would be something to draw him away from this place. Anything to give him a reason not to go in.Or: in which Matt's friends decide that going to an anger management group would be a good idea, and he makes a new friend with a few issues of his own.





	Anger Management

**Author's Note:**

> I have several DD WIPs which aren't actually progressing due to Real Life, but finally found time to wrap this one up. It occurred to me during a rewatch of Infinity War that in some ways Matt and Bruce aren't dissimilar. I suppose in some ways this is another take on Matt Meets the Avengers, but not quite (one of those is another of the WIPs). 
> 
> Also, thank you to everyone who has left kudos on my other DD fics, which have now garnered more kudos than anything else I have on AO3. I am astonished and grateful.

Matt stood in front of the building, hand wrapped tight around the handle of his cane, listening hard to the city in the hope that there would be something to draw him away from this place. Anything to give him a reason not to go in.

It had been Claire’s idea, but she had been enthusiastically backed up by Luke, and Foggy and Karen in turn.

Matt had used all his powers of persuasion and rhetoric to argue against the idea. He couldn’t be honest talking to a group of strangers, he’d pointed out. He had an outlet already – hitting bad guys. He’d tried stopping Daredevilling, and look what had happened.

They had batted every argument away. Had he ever tried talking to a group of strangers? Had he tried stopping with proper support?

Karen had ended the argument by picking up the phone and booking Matt in.

And so here he stood, outside a community centre in the Upper West Side, trying to avoid going in. The Man Without Fear, afraid of talking.

Someone came up beside him – a man, a little shorter than Matt but bulkier. He walked quietly but his heartbeat was solid and rhythmic in his chest.

“Can I … are you here for the group?” he asked, pausing beside Matt. “I’m Bruce. Regular.”

Matt tamped down his natural instinct to refuse an offer of help, and reminded himself he was a regular, normal guy tonight.

“Yeah. First time.”

“I can show you where the room is, if you like,” said Bruce. He had a soft, slightly hesitant voice. “Do you … I mean …”

“Sure. Thanks,” said Matt, putting out his free hand and letting it fumble a little until it rested in Bruce’s elbow.

Inside the corridors smelt of bleach, stale cookies and linoleum and were long and echoey. Matt focused on the steady pulse of his guide and his footsteps and the smell of his aftershave.

“Four doors on your right and we’re in the fifth,” Bruce said. He pushed open the door and went in.

There were others already in the room, who greeted Bruce warmly. Matt counted five others. In turn, they came up and introduced themselves. One woman, four other men.

“Lance. Group leader,” one of them said. “Matt, right?”

Matt nodded. “Nice to meet you,” he said, automatically, although he was still wishing he could run.

Lance called the room to order and they all took seats. Bruce was to Matt’s right, the woman – Jenny, she had said her name was – to the left. Matt folded his cane and put it under his chair, adjusted his glasses, and twisted his hands together on his lap. The pressure of fingers against fingers helped him keep his attention within the room and not wander further afield. He listened to the pulses of those around him, to the buzz of the cheap bulbs in the light above their heads, and hoped the session would be short.

Lance’s chair squeaked as he pushed it backwards and his clothes rustled as he stood up. “Welcome,” he said. “I’ll start. It’s been a pretty good week. I only had to go outside to yell at the sky once. I only had one small argument, with a colleague. I’ve been pretty calm, really. I wanted to yell more. I thought about arguing with other colleagues. I considered punching a wall, for a second. But I didn’t. I managed to turn around and walk away.”

There was a smattering of applause and a murmur of “well dones” from the rest of the group. Lance sat down.

“Bruce?”

Next to Matt, Bruce stood, shifting his weight from one foot to another. “Yeah,” he said. “I had a pretty good week too, I guess. Kept myself busy thinking about research. Got kind of angry about a couple of things, but kept everything … inside.”

They went around the circle. One of the others had screamed at one of his children, and they had a discussion about the impact of that. Jenny said she’d been close to a meltdown when the supermarket was out of the right kind of milk. It was all little things. Matt found himself focusing hard on Bruce’s heartbeat, it being the loudest and the steadiest, and almost missed his name being called.

“Matt. You’re new. Tell us about yourself. Tell us why you’re here.” Lance’s voice was gentle.

Matt untwisted his hands and stood up. Beside him, Bruce’s pulse was steady, reassuring.

“My name’s Matt,” he said, because it seemed to be the way to start. “I’m, erm, I’m an attorney. My friends said I should come.”

“Why?” asked Lance, still gentle.

Matt felt his hand clenching into a fist, and unclenched it. “I tried to push them away,” he admitted. “I got angry about … about stuff, and thought I could deal better without them.”

There was a round of agreeing murmurs from the group.

Lance said, “what sort of stuff?”

Matt thought about his answer for a moment, about how to tell the truth without telling the truth.

“I hate that there’s injustice I can’t fix,” he said. “I see people struggling, getting hurt, and there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it. I hate that the rich and powerful get away with murder.”

“And you feel powerless to stop it?” one of the others said.

The truthful answer, Matt knew, was that no, he did not feel powerless. A lack of power was not his problem – the problem was that there was not enough he could do against the Fisks of the world.

“It’s more that whatever I do, it’s not enough,” he said, compromising. He could feel the pity for the blind man rolling off a couple of the group, but not all of them, and he sat down again.

Lance led a discussion about how to manage strong emotions, techniques to tamp down anger. Matt knew most of them – this was elementary, things Stick had taught him in the first weeks – but in deference to Claire and the others he did his best to focus, to participate. Finally, after a long, long hour, the group was over.

Matt reached under his chair and picked up his cane, snapping it out to full length. Bruce was hovering nearby.

“Heading out?” he asked. “Mind if I walk with you?”

Matt found he did not. After an hour using Bruce as an anchor, he felt familiar; and to do the man credit, he did not try and guide Matt this time. Instead, he walked close by his side and did not say anything until they were out of the building.

“I didn’t want to mention it in there,” Bruce said, “but are you, maybe, the lawyer that had the Wilson Fisk case?”

Matt turned his body to face Bruce. “Yeah. Yeah I am. My partner and I.”

“I thought so. Some of what you said … rang a bell. Look, I got the impression that group therapy isn’t your sort of thing.”

“Not really,” Matt admitted.

“It wasn’t mine,” Bruce said. “I keep going more for routine than anything. But I wondered, if you fancied a drink, or – or something.” He added, quickly, “not necessarily now, if you have something else to do.”

Checking his watch – it was just past eight o’clock – Matt considered. The overture was generous, and all he got from Bruce was a cautiously friendly sort of vibe. The guy seemed genuine, and maybe it was worth the effort.

“Sure,” he said.

“Any idea where to go?” Bruce asked. “I don’t know this area well, apart from this place. You?”

“Afraid not,” Matt said. “Bit far north for me. I’m a Hell’s Kitchen boy.”

“Let’s just walk until we find somewhere, then,” suggested Bruce. There was a pause. “Feel free to take my arm again, if you need to,” he added.

Taking Bruce’s elbow, Matt fell into step by his side. “So you know I’m a lawyer,” he said, “what do you do?”

“Science,” said Bruce. “Physics.”

“I’m not even going to start asking you more about that,” Matt said, “it’ll go way over my head.”

Up ahead he could hear the sounds of a bar – glasses chinking, beer being poured, music being played – but he waited until they were a couple of blocks closer before saying, “is that a bar, maybe?”

They went in, and settled at a table. A server came over and they ordered beers. After the drinks came, they sipped in companionable silence for a few minutes, before Bruce said, “so your friends pushed you to tonight, right?”

“Yeah,” Matt agreed. “I tried to get out of it, but …” he shrugged. “They can be persuasive.”

“It’s good to have people who care,” Bruce said.

“You too?” asked Matt.

“One friend, in particular,” said Bruce. His heartbeat skipped, very slightly.

“Female friend?”

There was a silent pause, and then Bruce said, “I nodded. Sorry. Does that happen a lot?”

“A bit,” Matt said. “It’s fine.”

“She calms me down when I get … angry,” Bruce continued. “Her voice. Makes a b – big difference.”

Matt circled the top of his glass with a finger, the very slight ringing audible only to him. “What makes you angry?” he asked.

“Less things than used to make me angry,” Bruce said. “Which is good. You don’t want to see me when I’m angry.”

“That’s all right, it’s unlikely I will,” Matt countered, grinning at him. It took Bruce a moment, and then he laughed.

“Fell into that one, didn’t I?”

“Not the first,” Matt said. “Definitely won’t be the last.”

“How did … if you don’t mind me asking … were you born blind?” Bruce asked, cautiously.

Matt had known the question would come – it inevitably did, whenever he met someone new. He gave Bruce the short version.

“Chemicals, huh,” he said. “Must’ve hurt.”

“I’ve had better days,” Matt agreed. “And a long time to come to terms with it.”

“You don’t get frustrated?” queried Bruce.

Adjusting his glasses, Matt considered his answer. “Not about being blind, in and of itself. It’s other people’s attitudes which … which are hard.”

“People see one thing and jump to conclusions,” Bruce said. “They’d look at us both and think we were two mild, calm types.”

“You sound mild enough,” said Matt, checking the time as he spoke. It was beginning to get late, and he needed to get out on patrol. Even after what had been a surprisingly pleasant drink with a new acquaintance, the evening had made him want to get out and hit something. That probably meant the session had not worked, but, he reasoned, he’d deal with that later.

He dug his phone from his pocket, unlocked it and handed it to Bruce. “I’ve got to go, I’m afraid – work to finish. Would you …”

Bruce took the phone and typed in his name and number. “Sure. Will we see you at group again?”

Unfolding his cane, Matt shrugged. “Possibly.” He held out his hand, and Bruce took it and shook. “Thanks.”

“Pl – pleasure,” Bruce said.

By the time Matt got home from patrol, much, much later, his hands were sore and he had a new cut on his thigh, but he felt much better than he had earlier.

***

Bruce paid the bar tab and wandered out into the Manhattan night, hands in his pockets, thinking about Matthew Murdock. The Wilson Fisk case had caught the attention of everyone at Avengers Tower, not least because of the Daredevil connection. They all had their different theories about the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. Tony thought he should be regulated. Natasha wanted to fight him. Steve said he understood the man’s connection to New York. Bruce had always wondered about the Devil’s skills, and how he acquired them.

He hadn’t approached Murdock in any hope of getting to find out more about Daredevil, of course; even if the lawyer had known anything, Bruce was no fool and he knew that it was unlikely Murdock would give up any information on the vigilante. More, he had recognised a man resistant to help. It rang a bell. Hell, he’d run a thousand miles in the past rather than face up to reality. It all came down to managing the stimuli effectively, and Murdock, clearly, was yet to get there.

Bruce had watched him in the group discussion. He’d seen the way Murdock’s hands had clenched and unclenched, repeatedly, as he spoke. This was a man who had strong feelings about life, but kept them bottled tightly up until, apparently, it was too late. Quite what ‘too late’ meant, Bruce was not yet sure. But he’d enjoyed their conversation.

However at the group the next week, Murdock was not there. Bruce was sorry, but not surprised. He was surprised when, on leaving, the lawyer appeared beside him.

“Bruce?”

“Yeah,” Bruce agreed. “I, um, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I realised I’d got more out of our talk than the group,” Murdock admitted. “Was wondering if you could spare the time again.”

“Sure,” Bruce said, and stuck his elbow out. “If you need …”

Murdock seemed to grasp the question, and took his arm.

They settled in at the same bar as the previous week. “Good week?” Bruce asked. In the light, he could see there was a bruise on the lawyer’s cheek, stretching up to under his red glasses. Almost as though Murdock could see Bruce gazing at it, he touched the bruise and laughed.

“Walked into a door,” he said. “Apart from that, yeah, it was a good week.”

He told Bruce about some of the cases he was working on, and Bruce tried to explain his research, without mentioning Stark or the Avengers. Then the conversation shifted, prompted by the music on in the bar, to their musical tastes. Before Bruce realised it was almost 10pm and they’d got through three beers each – and, he realised, he’d made a friend.

They called it a night after the third drink, paid up and left the bar.

“Subway?” asked Bruce.

“Cab,” said Murdock. “I, erm, I don’t really like the subway. But I’ll grab one from outside the subway station if you’re going that way.”

They set off down the street, in companionable silence.

Later, Bruce wasn’t sure exactly what happened – only that the rhythmical tap-tap-tap of Murdock’s cane suddenly stopped. The lawyer’s head turned, as though he was listening to something, and then he said, “ _fuck_!” The next thing Bruce knew, a group of four young men were coming at them, one armed with a pistol and the others with knives, yelling something about phones and wallets.

Murdock let go of the handle of his cane and gripped it like a staff instead, flicking it neatly at the first assailant to reach them and disarming him of his knife. Dropping the cane, he moved into a series of what looked like devastatingly powerful punches.

Bruce had only a few moments to appreciate that a man who he was pretty sure was blind was moving like that before he noticed the man with the gun had raised it and was aiming it, at pretty much point-blank distance, right at Murdock.

He didn’t stop to think. He _liked_ the guy. And whatever skills he had, Bruce was sure that Murdock wasn’t able to come back from being shot in the heart. As the gunman squeezed the trigger, Bruce flung himself in the bullet’s path.

***

It had been a good evening. A normal evening. Matt had been able to pretend he was just a regular guy, out for regular beers with a regular – if scarily smart - friend who knew nothing about vigilantes or super-senses or even criminals, apart from what he read in the newspapers. They’d talked about music, and work. They’d dipped briefly into politics, discovered they were more or less on the same spectrum, and by common consent moved on.

Walking down the street Matt was listening mostly to Bruce’s heartbeat and thinking how deep and steady it sounded. It was already a heartbeat he knew he’d recognise if he heard it without warning. It was relaxing, and that, together with the vague fuzziness from the beers, meant that he almost missed the voices in the alleyway deciding that two well-off men strolling heedless down the street were the right targets for a mugging.

He just had time to shift his stance into one of defence before the attackers were on them. One gun, three knives, and Matt did not think Bruce was much of a fighter. There was no choice to be made. He engaged the first man to come at him, disarming him quickly, and was in the middle of getting him out of the way when he heard the click of a pistol’s safety coming off.

Matt kept punching, ready to duck. And then Bruce flung himself in the way, even as the gun went off. There was no time to do anything; Matt heard, almost _felt_ the bullet hit home.

There was a roar, and abruptly Bruce’s heartbeat got five times louder and more insistent. Matt laid out his opponent with a final right hook and paused, taking in what was happening.

The other three men were running, their pulses racing in terror, and something was roaring loud and deep next to Matt. Something, or someone. It sounded like Bruce, but Bruce somehow expanded. It smelt like Bruce too, but with a deeper, pungent overtone that almost overwhelmed Matt’s senses.

Across the road he heard someone say, “hell, it’s the Hulk!” A bit further away, the sirens were approaching.

Matt hesitated for another second. Nearby, there was an incoherent roar and a crunching of metal; apparently, whatever Bruce now was, he was extremely angry, and rather large.

He scooped up his cane, straightened his jacket and made a beeline for the nearest alleyway. Now was not the time to hang around waiting for the police.

***

Bruce woke up swamped by a blanket, uncomfortable on a thin mat, staring up at the ceiling of what he blearily recognised as the gym in the Avengers Tower. He sat up and rubbed his brow.

The doors swung open and he was greeted by Tony Stark, looking unbearably perky compared to how Bruce felt.

“Ugh,” he said.

“That’s hardly the way to greet a friend bearing coffee,” said Tony, handing over the beverage. “Been a while since the big guy came out to play.”

“Yeah.” Bruce sipped coffee, and felt very slightly more human. “What happened?”

“Police called, said they had a Hulk problem on the Upper West Side,” Tony said, holding out a hand and helping Bruce to his feet. “Me and a few of the robot suits managed to restrain you, eventually.”

“Thanks,” said Bruce. He wrapped the blanket more securely around him. “Um. I th – think I was with a friend. Was anyone else there, when you got to me?”

Tony held open the door. “Not close, apart from the usual groupies filming you. What friend? You have friends?”

“Haha,” said Bruce, with an effort. He squeezed his eyes shut, rubbed his brow and opened his eyes again. “Murdock. Matt Murdock. We’d been for beers.”

Raising an eyebrow, Tony said, “you have friends? That aren’t us?”

“He came to the group, last week,” Bruce said. “Looked like he needed someone to talk to.” He tried to remember. “We were … we were being mugged. There was a gun.”

“So you jumped in front of it,” Tony said.

“Well,” Bruce shrugged, “I’m fine.”

“For a relative level of fine,” Tony argued.

Safe in his room, Bruce showered and changed. He briefly mourned his shirt and pants from the previous night – he’d liked that outfit, but like so many others, it was consigned to history.

He found his phone by his bed, and made a mental reminder to thank Tony for finding it for him. There were two unread text messages, both from Matt Murdock.

 _Hope you’re okay_ , read the first one. The second, sent about ten minutes later, said, _We should probably talk_.

Bruce texted back _I’m fine. We should. Where and when?_

Murdock sent directions for a restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, that evening.

After a day spent buried in the lab, grounding himself with science, Bruce felt much calmer and able to face what he suspected was going to be an awkward conversation with Murdock. The restaurant was a small Chinese place in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen, and Murdock was already there at a table in the back. Bruce sat down on the other side of the table, and there was a moment’s uneasy silence as Murdock fiddled with his glasses and Bruce adjusted the cutlery in front of him.

“Well,” Bruce said, eventually. “So, I, erm …”

“Thanks for saving my life,” Murdock cut in. “Taking the shot, I mean. You didn’t have to …”

“I knew it wouldn’t kill me,” Bruce pointed out.

“It did something to you,” Murdock said, his red glasses staring at Bruce’s napkin. “You … you sounded like you _grew_.”

Bruce picked at the napkin. “Yeah. That’s what happens when I get angry. I’m, um, I’m …” he looked up, at Murdock, because he felt he should while being honest, “you’ve heard of the Hulk, right?”

Murdock nodded. “Although all I really know is the Hulk is one of the Avengers. Was involved in the Incident.”

“The Hulk comes out when I get angry,” Bruce said.

“Ah.”

“I was exposed to gamma rays, a while back,” Bruce continued, into Murdock’s red gaze, “and since then … he shrugs off bullets. It’s like a defence mechanism. So yeah, I knew that if the bullet hit me, the big guy’d come out, you’d be fine, I’d be fine.”

“A friend of mine hates me saying I’m fine,” Murdock said. For some reason he was smiling. “What does the Hulk look like?”

Bruce put down the shredded napkin. “Big. Ugly. Green. Strong. I guess I should have told you.”

“Why should you have told me?” Murdock asked. “It wasn’t relevant in our conversations.”

“That’s a very lawyer thing to say,” Bruce said. He rewound this particular conversation a few minutes. “You said I sounded like I grew.”

Murdock shifted, his shoulders hunching a little, and then he smiled ruefully.

***

Matt had expected Bruce’s confession. He had spent part of the day researching the Hulk, but had gleaned little from the research. He still wasn’t sure how much of his own fight the previous night Bruce had seen, or registered, but he felt like he owed the man something. He might have dodged the bullet – but then he might not have done, and the Hulk’s intervention had saved him from that.

He sat back in his chair, and did his best to look straight at the other man.

“It turns out we’ve got more in common than anger management issues,” he said. “I told you I was blinded in an accident when I was a kid.”

Bruce’s pulse remained steady. Matt twisted his fingers together. He wondered why telling the story never seemed to get easier.

“The chemicals which took my sight enhanced the rest of my senses,” he said. “I use them to defend those who can’t defend themselves. I’m not like you, I’m not a hero or anything, but …”

His companion’s heart ticked up a beat. “You’re the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Yeah.”

There was silence in their corner of the restaurant, although the buzz around was noisy enough that Matt was sure nobody could have overheard their conversation.

“So when you said you get angry about stuff …” Bruce said.

“I go and hit people,” Matt admitted. “I hear a lot of stuff that goes on in this city. I heard too much, and I couldn’t fix it through the law. Daredevil is, I guess, my Hulk. He’s what happens when I get angry.”

He heard the footsteps of the waitress, and stopped talking while she gave them menus, realised Matt could not read his, got flustered, apologised for not having a Braille menu and spilled a few drops of water on the tablecloth.

Matt lifted his head and smiled at her, which merely seemed to fluster her more. “It’s fine, I’ve been here before. I’ll have the char siu pork please, and a beer.”

Bruce ordered noodles and they were left alone again.

“Do you think of the Devil as a separate entity?” Bruce asked, keeping his voice low.

Matt thought about it, remembering how he felt after Midland Circle, when he was convinced that being Daredevil was all that was worth existing for, that Matt Murdock was not.

“Yes,” he said, “and no. I don’t have to pretend, in the mask. I can just be. Daredevil doesn’t need a cane, or a guide. Nobody worries about him, or pities him.”

“But?” said Bruce.

“But I know all that is still a part of me the rest of the time too,” Matt admitted. “And I use my senses all the time anyway.”

He paused again, while the waitress brought their drinks.

“What happens when you get angry in court?” Bruce asked, when she had gone away. His voice sounded like he was genuinely interested.

“I use everything I can against the other side,” Matt said.

“Verbal punching, right.” Bruce picked up his beer, drank, put it down again. “I kind of envy you.” His heartbeat thuds out the truth of the statement.

“Envy me?”

“I get angry, I turn into a giant green rage-monster, and I don’t get to remember taking that anger out on whatever I take it out on,” Bruce said, his voice rueful. “I don’t get to choose who I hurt.”

The smell of food was suddenly strong, and Matt waited to answer until they had been served. He dug into his meal and chewed, savouring the complexity of the flavours in his mouth.

“And I envy you,” he said, eventually. “I’m trying to defend people from those who’d hurt them, but I feel every hit I land, and I remember it all afterwards.”

Bruce suddenly laughed, and it was a welcome sound. “Christ, look at us both. What a pair.”

“Can’t look,” Matt said, gesturing at his glasses with his chopsticks.

Groaning, Bruce said, “and again, I step right into the bad blind joke. Sorry. But going back a bit, what did you mean about me sounding bigger?”

Matt picked out a piece of pork and ate it. “Everyone has a distinctive heartbeat,” he said. “When you changed, last night, yours got louder. Your breathing got louder. You took up more space in the world. Bigger.”

“Angrier,” Bruce said. His voice was bitter.

For a moment, Matt thought about contradicting him, but knew it would be cruel. They had reached a point of honesty with each other. “Yeah,” he said. “Angrier. I, erm, I got out of the way.”

“Most people do,” said Bruce, glumly.

They ate for a time in silence.

***

Bruce finished his noodles – they had been particularly good – and picked up his glass. Murdock, managing his chopsticks with easy dexterity, put the last bit of food in his own mouth and laid down the chopsticks.

“Order more, if you want,” he said, and then looked suddenly, somehow, guilty. “Sorry. Your stomach rumbled … my friends keep telling me to stop listening to people.”

“Can you stop listening?” Bruce asked, genuinely interested. Here was a man who had told him he could hear heartbeats, and now the gurgling of a non-quite satiated stomach. The scientist in him longed to do some tests; the man told him that would be a bad idea. He waved the waitress over anyway, and asked for a plate of dumplings.

“If I focus on one thing, I can shut out some of the rest of it,” Murdock said. “If I stop focusing, it’s just a cacophony of noise.” His eyes went down to the table, his head tilted, and he said, “right now, I can hear the chefs in the kitchen, though they’re talking Cantonese and I can’t understand them. One of them has a heart murmur. One of the gas jets is partially blocked.”

He gestured at another table. “They’re arguing about where to go on holiday. Over there, his pulse is racing. Maybe he’s nervous about what he’s going to ask his date. By the door, they’re just talking through their day.”

Murdock’s head shifted. “Outside, there’s a police car three blocks away. Someone playing the Rolling Stones in an apartment across the street and up two floors.”

“Jesus,” said Bruce, halting the flow of words. “No wonder you get angry at the world if you can hear all that.”

“Intellectually,” Murdock said, “I know I should be grateful. That I lost one thing,” he gestured at his shaded eyes, “and gained so much more. People have told me that.”

Bruce picked up his chopsticks again as his dumplings arrived, selected one and ate it before he replied. “I spend a lot of time around extraordinary people,” he said. “Some of them chose to be extraordinary. Some of them were just born that way. Others are like you and me, it was an accident, a quirk of fate, whatever. A lot of the time I think most of them would quite like to just be normal.”

He paused, considering. “Apart from Tony, maybe. I don’t think Tony knew what normal was anyway. And Thor, of course. You should meet them.”

Murdock choked on his beer. “I’m sorry?”

“The Avengers,” Bruce clarified. “You’ve been quite the subject of discussion anyway. Half of the others want to try sparring with you. Tony wants to work out how you do what you do.”

Behind the red glasses, Murdock’s expression closed up. “I’ll pass. Thanks. I have no desire to be a superhero.”

“Neither have I,” said Bruce.

“That’s your advantage, though,” Murdock argued. “You said yourself, you don’t remember. I just want to protect my city. Not the world. My fight is those people threatening Hell’s Kitchen, not aliens.”

Finishing the dumplings, Bruce wiped his mouth and laid down his chopsticks.

“If you’re sure,” he said.

“I’m sure.”

“Well,” Bruce returned, “if you ever change your mind, you know how to find me. And you know where I’ll be, every Wednesday night. In case you feel like talking things out, rather than punching them out.”

Across the table, Murdock reflexively rubbed the back of his hands which, Bruce noticed, were scabbed and bruised. “Yeah. Thanks. I might take you up on that, sometimes.”

“You’d be welcome,” said Bruce.

***

They quibbled over the check, but Matt ended up winning the fight to pay and together they headed into the night. The easy companionship he’d felt with Bruce the previous night had changed – both of them were more wary, with the knowledge of what and who they were – but he thought to himself they could still be friends.

It was a warm night, and he had a feeling that it would be the sort of night where criminal activity was likely. And yet, after the talk, he felt at once drained and calm and he thought that perhaps he might just go straight home, put on an audiobook and get an early night for once. They had a big deposition the next day, and Matt acknowledged to himself that it would be only what Foggy deserved if he turned up on time, and alert, and not carrying a fresh set of bruises.

“I’m going this way,” he said to Bruce. “You?”

“Avengers’ Tower,” said Bruce, a hint of embarrassment, perhaps, in his voice. “I have a room there. And a lab.”

“Look,” Matt said, “if … I don’t want to meet them, as myself. Not as Matt Murdock. But if any of them do really want to spar, I wouldn’t say no, not really. It would make a change from muggers and drug dealers. I’m in the Kitchen most nights, around midnight. I’m sure you guys have a way of tracking someone. Look for me on the rooftops.”

“Expect them to take you up on that,” Bruce returned, a smile in his voice. “But … look after yourself.”

“I’ll try,” Matt said, and he meant it.

 


End file.
